A cigar of a fish lying on open sand, propped on its pelvic fins, patterned to disappear against it. Most divers pass one every dive; the fish does not move until it does.
The strike is vertical. A lizardfish buries itself with a wriggle until only the eyes and snout show, waits for something to pass above, and comes straight up out of the bottom in a single burst - the whole event lasting a fraction of a second. Prey up to half its own length is taken.
The teeth are everywhere. Needle-sharp and slightly recurved, they line the jaws, the palate and the tongue, so a fish that is caught is caught in a mouth full of hooks. Nothing that goes in comes out.
Because it hunts by sitting still, it tolerates a slow approach better than almost any fish here, which makes it one of the easiest subjects on sand - and it is one of the fish most often photographed by accident, because it is in the background of half the shots taken over a sandy bottom.
The species. Synodus dermatogenys Fowler 1912 - dérmato- (δέρματο). ETYFish
- cigar-shaped fish resting on the bottom propped on its pelvic fins
- sandy with a row of dark diamond blotches along the flank
- large mouth reaching well past the eye, full of fine needle teeth
- length up to 24 cm
Why it's threatened
Synodus dermatogenys is of no importance to fisheries, and there are no other known major threats at this time.
Threat classification from the IUCN Red List.
